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Pols dissect ruling on POLITICO Live

Van Hollen, meanwhile, slammed House Republicans’ plan for a full-scale repeal bill as “an obviously empty political gesture” and a “very dangerous political road for them to go down.”

But Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who noted he was “surprised” by the ruling, said the high court’s decision moves health care “into the full political arena” – and Republicans will make repealing health care a top priority.

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“It doesn’t mean that our work is by any stretch over. It just now shifts into the full political arena. If Congress has the power to levy taxes, we also have the power to un-levy taxes and clearly it’s incumbent upon us to get busy on that now,” Burgess said.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said Mitt Romney — and not Obama — emerged as the big winner politically from Thursday’s decision. Obama told Americans health care reform was not a tax, Lee said, and said he would not raise taxes on those who earn less than $250,000 a year. “Now the Supreme Court upholds this law, upholds the individual mandate, as a tax,” Lee said.

“This is not a boon to president Obama at all,” Lee said. “This is, I think this is a good day politically for Gov. Romney than it’s been for the White House.”

“I don’t expect its popularity will be enhanced by the fact that it has now become a tax,” he added.

Repealing the law has now become the top issue for the Romney campaign, Lee said.

“I think it’s appropriate that it’s issue number one. Americans deserve, first and foremost, to have tax increases passed by their elected representatives, and not by nine black robe wearing justices in the Supreme Court who just decide to deem something a tax,” he told POLITICO.

“What’s amazing about this whole conversation is Republicans have been the party protecting the deadbeats, protecting the freeloaders and the free riders, and they’ve gone away from the argument which they took when Mitt Romney took it and others, that everybody has some responsibility in sharing in the cost of health care,” he said.

“That’s what is so amazing about this argument. They have turned personal responsibility around — apparently Republicans no longer believe that people have some responsibility for paying for the services they’re getting,” Van Hollen added.

The live show aired online at POLITICO.com and in the D.C. area on NewsChannel8.

Looks like the writers who read the tea leaves from Scalia's (how he felt about the immigration law) and Ginsburg's (female justice who said that there will be a lot of debate) comments were more likely to guess the outcome right, 5-4 to uphold the law.